Microblogging site Twitter, with over 10 million users in Turkey has been apparently blocked by the country’s Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan himself with 4.2 million followers, after its users allegedly shared corruption recordings said to be him instructing his son on how dispose of a large amount of cash during a police probe.
At the moment, everyone visiting the web version of the site is redirected to the country’s telecoms regulator notice of a court order indicating why it has been blocked. The Prime Minister wants Twitter to remove links to websites publishing corruption allegations by the regime’s political enemies.
Calling it a smear campaign against him, the Prime Minister said he doesn’t care what the world thinks about the move.
“The international community can say this, can say that. I don’t care at all. Everyone will see how powerful the Republic of Turkey is,” one media firm reported him saying.
Ironically, users can still access the site via its text messaging service and the situation is making it worse for him and his family, that has been accused of corruption.The main fear, however is the government plans to target Facebook, Google+,YouTube among others as long as they are found with the links to recordings he calls fake.
This is not the first time the Turkish government is doing this. In July 2013, the government set a directive to ban Twitter again, saying it was more dangerous than bombs.